Plans and recording hours
There are four plans. What mainly sets them apart is how many hours you can record and whether video is included. You'll find the prices on the pricing page, and this page is about what each plan can do.
The four plans side by side¶
| Free | Pro | Max | Business | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recording hours | 2.5 hours, once | 15 hours a month | 15 hours a month | as agreed |
| Video recording | yes | no | yes | yes |
| Participants per session | 8 | 8 | 8 | as agreed |
| Live listeners at once | 300 | 150 | 300 | as agreed |
| Recordings kept for | 3 days | 7 days | 7 days | as agreed |
Free isn't a stripped-down Max. It deliberately has the same ceilings as Max on video, participants and listeners, so you can try the whole product at full size before you pay for anything. What limits Free is just the one-time 2.5 hours and the shorter retention. Pro is the plan for audio-only podcasts, with the same hours as Max, but no video and fewer listeners. So if Free offers more than Pro in some rows, that's on purpose.
What counts as a recording hour¶
A recording hour is an hour in which a take is running, from the moment you press record to the moment it stops. So a one-hour take costs you one hour, whether two or eight people are talking. Time between takes, time in the waiting room and live listeners don't cost anything.
The server keeps the count. A finished take is booked once it's closed, and a running take already counts while you record. You can see how many hours you've used on your account page and in the session menu, always as the current figure, even in the middle of a recording. Shortly before your budget runs out, the REC pill counts down the time you have left.
When the budget runs out¶
Once your budget is used up, no new take starts. If you're on Free, podsink then offers you an upgrade. On Pro, Max and Business it tells you when your hours start over, and on Pro or Max it also lets you know that we're happy to set up a Business plan that fits your needs. A take that's already running doesn't just get cut off at the limit, though. It gets thirty minutes of extra time, the remaining time shows next to REC, and then the server stops the take. Everything recorded up to that point is kept and uploads as usual.
Free is one-time, monthly plans reset¶
Each account gets the 2.5 free hours exactly once. So if you move from a paid plan back to Free, you pick up right where your free usage left off.
On Pro and Max, on the other hand, the budget starts over every month, even if you pay yearly. Your account page shows when the next month starts and how much you used in the last one. Hours you don't use expire at the end of the month.
Changing plans¶
An upgrade takes effect right away. You can use the new plan immediately, and whatever is left on the old one is credited against the charge. A downgrade, on the other hand, is scheduled for the end of the period you've paid for, so for the end of the year if you pay yearly. Until then you keep your current plan and can cancel the scheduled switch any time, and after that podsink switches you over automatically. Cancelling works the same way, and everything about billing, invoices and cancelling is on Billing.
Recordings that already exist keep the retention they were promised when their session ended, no matter which plan you move to afterwards. So you can still download video recordings from a Max session after switching to Pro. You just can't record new video then.